“May The 4th Be With You”

How one single sentence can bring so much joy, marketing and annoyance.

“May the 4th be with you.”

Although today it is know as a “social media trend”, this isn’t really a new thing at all. It has actually been around since 1979, when Margaret Thatcher on May 4th took office as the UK Prime Minister. Word of mouth is that the Conservative party placed an ad in the London Evening News which read: “May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations.” Since then it’s only been more and more widespread, and brands are picking up on it.

The day is pretty much culturally hijacked by other franchises, like this one:

This is probably not (very likely not) made by any of the creators of Game of Thrones, but it is still shared exessively on social media sites, giving HBO some of that nice and warm (and free) advertising.

Even Hootsuite has used the phrase to get some attention (although, how funny they are can definitely be debated):